Companies are turning to combinatorial chemistry techniques for developing new compounds having novel physical and chemical properties. Combinatorial chemistry involves creating a large number of chemical compounds by reacting a known set of starting chemicals in all possible combinations and then analyzing the properties of each compound systematically to locate compounds having specific desired properties. See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/327,513 (published as WO 96/11878), filed Oct. 18, 1994, entitled “The Combinatorial Synthesis of Novel Materials”, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference.
The virtually endless number of possible compounds that can be created from the Periodic Table of Elements requires a systematic approach to the synthesizing and screening processes. Thus, any system that can analyze each compound's properties quickly and accurately is highly desirable. Further, such a system would be useful in any application requiring quick, accurate measurement of a liquid's properties, such as in-line measurement of additive concentrations in gasoline flowing through a conduit or detection of environmentally-offending molecules, such as hydrogen sulfide, flowing through a smokestack.
It is therefore an object of the invention to measure simultaneously both the physical and the electrical properties of a fluid composition using a mechanical resonator device.
It is also an object of the invention to detect differences clearly between two or more compounds in a fluid composition by using a mechanical resonator device to measure a composition's physical and electrical properties.
It is a further object of the invention to use a mechanical resonator device to monitor and measure a physical or chemical transformation of a fluid composition.
It is also an object of the invention to use a mechanical resonator device to detect the presence of a specific material in a fluid.